SXSW First Look: FrontRunners Documentary

The SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX is just a few weeks away and we're looking at a few of the films that will be premiering there. Today it's the documentary FrontRunners directed by Caroline Suh. "It's hard to run for office - even in high school." The doc is a look at the student body president elections at the prestigious Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Similar to American Teen, the runaway high school documentary hit from Sundance, FrontRunners follows four students who must battle through the social atmosphere of high school to gain the popularity and attention of their peers and win their vote.

The campaign for student body president at Stuyvesant, perhaps the most prestigious public high school in the country, is almost as sophisticated as any presidential election. But unlike presidential candidates, they also have to do their homework, take their SATs and write their college applications.

Watch the trailer for FrontRunners:

[flv:frontrunners.flv 502 282]

The four candidates are described: "There is the favorite, a popular heartthrob; the rich cheerleader; the slacker jock; and a lone wolf straight out of Rushmore (his name is George). But each ends up being more complex than they might first appear." You can see each of them below on the official poster. I'm really wondering if this will be any good and certainly will be catching a screening at SXSW.

Frontrunners is directed by budding producer and filmmaker Caroline Suh. The film will premiere at the SXSW Film Festival with the first showing on Monday, March 10th at 9PM. This doesn't have a US distributor yet, but I'm sure if it's good, someone will quickly pick it up.

You can be certain that we'll be seeing this at SXSW and will be one of the first to report back on our thoughts. Check out the full-line up of films showing at SXSW this year.